


Gravity

by scribblemetimbers



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson is the best wingman ever, Skinny! Steve, Steve and Bucky will always be terrible and awkward dorks no matter where they are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 00:23:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1919724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemetimbers/pseuds/scribblemetimbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes was just walking along the park and minding his own damn business when a bundle of blonde hair and skinny elbows slammed into him from above.</p>
<p>In which Steve is being all noble and rescuing shit from trees of questionable stability and Bucky is the unsuspecting schmuck who happens to be passing under him.</p>
<p>There’s a pick-up line for this. Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity

 

Steve can count on one hand the number of times he’s been genuinely grateful for his small frame. The first was when he was a lot younger and loved playing hide and seek with his cousins. He can hide in the smallest spaces around his house comfortably and therefore win the game 9 times out of 10. The second was a couple of years later, during grade school, and he was running from a particularly vicious group of boys determined to punch the living shit out of him for interrupting their fun. He had nimbly climbed walls and squeezed through fences and lost them after a merry chase around the neighborhood (this was after he delivered swift punches to the guts and vicious kicks to the back of knees. The targets offered by much taller people to someone as small as Steve are generally few but very painful). His asthma fucked up his breathing for an indeterminate amount of time after, of course, but he’d do it again, because their fun consisted of harassing little kids and he was never tolerant of douchebags.

The third instance is, well, _now_. He’s about 10 feet off the ground, clutching a tree branch for dear life, and slowly inching forward to grab the kite stuck on a mess of leaves.

_Just a little more…_

He lets out a hiss of triumph when his fingertips touch a corner of the kite and then, when he has a more solid grip, he gently wiggles it loose until the whole thing’s free.

“Watch out!” Steve yells before letting the kite fall to the ground. The little girls below him squeal in delight before grabbing the kite. They turn their faces up and give him identical gap-toothed grins. He gives them a small smile and a thumbs up in return. “Thank you!” they yell happily, before scampering off to their group of friends.

Steve waits until the little girls are out of earshot before breathing a sigh of relief and then reaching for his phone, which has been vibrating steadily for the past ten minutes inside his back pocket. Wrapping one hand firmly around the branch, he fishes his phone out from his pants and answers the call. “Hello?”

“Are you dying?” Natasha Romanov demands in lieu of saying hello, which was her own way of showing love and concern. “Who do I have to kill?”

“I’m not _dying_ , Natasha,” Steve says, “But I got held up. You guys can start the meeting without me. If the school board _still_ turns deaf ears on every complaint we have about bullying and their shitty rules about it, I give you and Maria Hill permission to start anarchy.” He pauses. Wait, right, he was still the council president of his supposedly upstanding Catholic private school. “Discreetly,” he amends.

“Where are you?”

“Climbing a tree.”

A pause. “Is that a metaphor?” Natasha finally asks. “Rogers, did you actually just ditch a meeting to get _laid_?” Natasha sounds absolutely delighted, despite being the legitimate vice president of the student council.

“No. No!” Steve protests, wriggling like a worm and trying to scoot backward without falling to his gruesome death. “I’m _on_ a tree. Literally.”

There’s a brief pause. Steve winces.

“… Rogers,” Natasha says flatly.

The _why did you answer the phone while up on a fucking tree_ went implied.

“I will be right there, I swear I’ll attend,” Steve says, instead of admitting that maybe answering the phone while up a fucking _tree_ was not the smartest decision he ever made. He scoots, slowly inching his way to the base of the branch. “Just… let me get down from here an—“

_C-crack._

Steve stills.

“Steve?”

_C-cra-CRACK._

Steve’s reply was a strangled yell as the branch broke and he plummeted to the ground.

 

\---

 

James Buchanan Barnes is currently on his way home from school. He crosses the park fifteen minutes away from his house while hefting his backpack more securely up on his right shoulder. He was having a semi-good day, all things considered. It was a Friday afternoon and there were no exams in the near horizon, at least for seniors like him. Nobody died in the practice game against a rival public high school’s baseball team, which usually ends in either broken bones or excessive tears (by the time Bucky became co-captain, the team had their own area in the school’s infirmary). He managed to hammer out the kinks on the Piece That Is Not A Hoverboard he’s working on for the Science Fair this coming month without activating any fire alarms (it was _one time_ ) or cannibalizing the faculty room’s water dispenser for parts (it was for _science_ ).

(There’s a rumor that a rich kid with an AI and the balls to match is going to present a _lightsaber._ Like hell will he let some schmuck from private school show him up.)

He’s just happy and minding his own business, is the thing. So his reaction’s understandably along the lines of a hysterical _what the fuck_ when one minute he’s walking under a tree and then the next second, he’s flat on the ground, pain radiating everywhere on his body and he can’t fucking breathe, because there’s a weight smushing his face to the muddy soil and pointy things (elbows, he thinks hazily) jabbing his back.

“Oh my god, I am so _so_ sorr—I am so sorry,” babbles a voice above him, and it takes Bucky a while to pierce through the throbbing in his head and realize that voice belongs to the lump above him, which thankfully starts to scramble off him. When the weight disappears, Bucky rolls on his back and hacks out dirt. Maybe a couple of weeds. An ant or two. He takes back his happiness. He’s _so done_ with the world.

“You scared the shit outta me,” Bucky groans, sitting up and wiping his mouth. He squeezes his eyes tightly and wills the nausea to go away. Two warm hands grasp his tightly and help pull him up. They let go when he’s finally upright. The voice was still apologizing profusely.

“I swear, I didn’t mean to fall on you it’s just that the little girls’ kite was up the tree and I was light enough to climb and –“

“Real boyscout there, aren’t ya?” Bucky jokes weakly, waiting for the world to stop spinning before opening his eyes. He keeps his head bowed, cataloging the scratches on his palms and idly noting that his shirt is just one big mudstain right now.

“— and get it and –oh _shit_ you’re bleeding—“

Bucky gingerly touches his forehead and immediately feels warm liquid.

Bucky pulls his hand away and blinks at his blood.

Oh. Huh.

A handkerchief suddenly appears and presses softly on his forehead. Bucky was about to protest because he’s fine, seriously, when a hand gently cradles his chin. Bucky finally looks up and inhales sharply, drinking in the sight of two concerned blue eyes framed by a mop of blonde hair currently sticking in two hundred different directions, interspersed with a few twigs and leaves. This close, he can see the spatter of freckles on the other boy’s nose, the smudge of dirt on his left cheek. It takes all his self-control not to wipe it away.

“Hello,” he says faintly. “Nice meeting you here.”

“Oh god, I _broke you._ ”

 

\---

 

In the end, they did need to go to the hospital.

The emergency room is blessedly quiet and sparingly occupied for a Friday. Most of the curtains separating each bed in the ward are pulled back, exposing clean linen sheets and unused pillows. Right now, four beds are currently occupied, the curtains stretched out.

The first bed has a little girl, breathing quietly through her oxygen mask.

The second bed has an old woman who's fast asleep, her cardiac monitor beeping merrily.

The third one has Bucky, who’s there for about three hundred bruises and a head wound.

The last one has Steve, who’s there for a few scrapes on his arms and legs. And his mortified soul.

The last two are situated as far away from each other as possible.

 

\---

 

“So let me get this straight,” Sam Wilson says slowly, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning back on his seat, shooting Bucky a look that tries and miserably fails to hide a grin. “You were just walking through the park, minding your own business, and then a guy fell from the sky and slammed into you?”

“He did not _fall out of the sky,_ ” Bucky protests, feebly glaring at him through the ice patch he’s pressing on his head. “He fell out of a tree I was passing under it and then WHAM! I was on the ground and – _Sam, I swear to god stop laughing why are you laughing_?”

Sam attempts to control his laughter. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can’t help it!” He’s practically rolling around on his chair. Bucky grumpily wonders if half the parents who are madly in awe of Sam Wilson’s prowess as a tutor to their kids knew about his tendency to be a Classic Troll. “He still fell into your arms. Like a gift from above,” Sam says.

In response, Bucky just collapses back on his bed and groans.

Sam suddenly straightens in his chair and wiggles his eyebrows at Bucky. “There’s a pick-up line for this. You know there’s a pick-up line for this, right?” he asks.

Bucky wrinkles his nose, and then immediately stops moving his face because _ow_. “God, no, that’s stupidly lame, Sam. Shut _up—“_

“Barnes,” Sam says reasonably, holding up a hand, as if he was talking to one of his little (minions) tutorees and not his co-captain for the past two years of high school. “The chance of a Disney introduction in real life happening again is about 0.5%. There is no way I am letting this go.”

“I have a bleeding head wound!”

“Because you were saving the guy of your dreams. Who has up on a tree. Like a Disney princess.”

“Guy of my drea—I NEVER SAID—I— _SAM.”_ Bucky sputters. God, he’s usually a lot better at lying than this. He can feel his face getting hotter, which should not have been possible because it was already pretty banged up and hot to begin with. Because, again, _he has a head wound._

“Don’t front, man. I saw your face before a doctor took him away. You looked poleaxed by _feelings._ ”

Bucky just glares, which is less effective than usual because the wound on his head and the lovely purple shade of his left cheek massively lessened the overall homicidal aura of his facial expression.

Sam then rubs his chin thoughtfully. He asks: “What’s he doing up a tree anyway? Got stuck while admiring the flowers? Singing for a nest of baby birds?”

There was a pregnant silence from Bucky before he grudgingly answers: “…He was untangling a kid’s kite.”

Sam’s peals of laughter can be heard from outside the hospital.

 

\--

 

“You climbed a tree to get a kite.”

“Yeah.”

“You were up on a tree to get a kite.”

“The little girls, Natasha! You would’ve done it too, don’t even—“

“You _fell_ from a tree.”

“Are you really gonna repeat this five thousand times?”

“—landed on top of some guy –“

“Natasha—“

“—and broke him.”

“Please stop reminding me.”

Steve Rogers squirms under the cool gaze of Natasha Romanov, one of his oldest friends and the only one whose poker face conveys a thousand emotions, more than half of which are usually extremely judgemental. Steve has lost count of the number of times he’s been put under that gaze— usually when he’s rambling about a new cause he can support and make programs for or ranting about bullies in the neighborhood and what he can do to fight them– but usually it’s mixed with an affectionate _‘Rogers, this is incredibly stupid but also really noble of you so I will back you up 150% and maybe hide the body after’_ undertone.

“I thought the branch could carry me! Natasha, you know I was the only one who could climb that tree. I am _light._ ”

Neither of them mentions the fact that Steve is also extremely prone to death and dismemberment _because_ he was light. And asthmatic. And extremely bullheaded with a strong Hero Complex. They didn’t have to. Natasha’s well-groomed eyebrow only has to rise one centimeter or so to convey everything.

“You were up on a tree to get a kite,” Natasha repeats.

“The little girls were about to _cry._ ”

“…your _bleeding heart,_ Rogers.”

“ _Natasha_.”

 

\---

 

Sam regains composure only long enough to help Bucky fill out the paperwork handed by a tiny nurse with a sweet smile. The blessed silence right after he hands the papers back to her was immediately destroyed when Sam starts chuckling.

“No,” Bucky immediately says, pointing a finger at him. “Whatever it is you’re gonna say _stop._ ”

Sam fully starts laughing after taking one look Bucky’s despairing face.

“Oh my god, ” Sam says, looking absolutely delighted. “Barnes, can you imagine if you guys actually get together and ten or so years from now you two tie the knot?” He clears his throat and pretends he's delivering a speech, deepening his voice and holding an imaginary microphone. “Yeah, you know, James here met the love of his life by literally catching him in his arms when he fell from the sky.”

“He fell from a tree. Straight to my _back._ ”

“Technicalities,” Sam says, waving his hands dismissively before clapping them together in glee. “I will be delivering the best speech _ever._ ”

“I’m not gonna pick you,” Bucky says immediately. “The hobo in the park will be my best man.”

Sam slings an arm around his shoulders, careful not to jar any of his bruises. “Come on, don’t be like that!” Sam says merrily. “I’ll aim for tears. Everyone’s going to turn into marshmallows, I tell you. Your parents will be _so proud.”_

“I am _not_ picking you,” Bucky repeats. Loudly.

 

\--- 

 

“Still, I gotta say, Rogers,” Natasha Romanov says, who was now texting and lounging on a chair she charmed from an all-too-willing and besotted intern. “I’ve been trying and failing to set you up with other people since the dawn of time and then you go and get yourself in the most cliché meet-cute in the history of ever.” She gives him a brief approving look, like an extremely proud mother hen. “I am so impressed.”

“A _what_?” Steve asks.

“A meet-cute,” Natasha repeats, who was back to looking at her phone. “You know, cinematic or cartoon levels of sappy, memorable introduction. Tangled and about 15 Disney movies.” She pauses, before letting out a small grin. Translated for the general population, it was the Natasha equivalent of cackle, which never did bode well for Steve. “Every single romantic comedy ever.”

“If you go by introductions being memorable, _we_ were in meet-cute,” Steve points out. “We met during Valentine’s day. During a _Shakespeare production_.”

“Steve,” Natasha says patiently. “We met because I kicked Justin Hammer in the balls while you punched him on both eyes for installing cameras inside the girls’ dressing room. It was memorable because it was justified attempted murder, not because it was cute.”

“Nat, I just literally told you how I nearly _crushed someone to death._ How is this a meet-cute?”

“Think of the stories I will tell your children,” Natasha says, ignoring his extremely valid point and gazing off into space, probably imagining how she was going to be simultaneously the best aunt ever and the worst friend in the history of the earth. “I saw him before the nurses spirited him away. Do the abs match the guns or was it just the cut of his shirt?”

“ _Natasha.”_

 

\--

 

Sam waits for Bucky to finish his food before handing him the bottled water. Bucky would’ve been more appreciative of the gesture if Sam just _stops talking._ “Think of the thousand ways you can start getting your game on, Barnes!”

“Please stop,” Bucky says in a pained voice.

“You took my breath away.”

“No.”

“You knocked me off my feet.”

“What the fuck?”

“You were so attractive, it bruised me. Literally.”

“ _Sam._ ”

“Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? Because you look like an _angel._ ”

Bucky flips him off. He doesn’t care that Sam got him food from the delicious café across the street and not the shitty hospital food from the cafeteria. Sam is a _terrible friend_.

 

\--

 

Steve gingerly gets off the bed. He really needs to go the bathroom and change his clothes. And then after that, he needs to apologize (A lot. So much apologizing. The head wound looked _nasty._ ) to the guy he fell on. Painfully. Steve winces.

“I want to meet him,” Natasha says out of nowhere, straightening from her slouched sitting position. She tucks her phone back inside her pocket and looks at Steve expectantly.

“He doesn’t even know me,” Steve points out.

Natasha huffs and stands up. “He’s four beds away from us, Steve. That can easily be arranged.”

The next thing Steve knew, his wrist is in Natasha’s tight grip and he’s being firmly pulled to the direction of the curtains.

“Wait. WAIT!” Steve hisses desperately, digging his heels to the floor and valiantly resisting. It would’ve been more effective if Steve was about 80 pounds heavier and Natasha was 90% less determined to aggressively interfere with his love life. “Let me first get him a—an apology gift or something! Stop pulling me! _Natasha_! _”_

 

\--

 

Bucky and Sam’s intense discussion about Feelings abruptly cuts off when the curtain separating them from the rest of the room pulls back and, almost like he was summoned, the guy they were just talking about stumbles into their little space, his thin arms madly pinwheeling as if he was pushed forcefully from behind. He’s barely regained his balance when the curtain flies open again to reveal an attractive redheaded girl, who proceeded to plant herself beside her friend. She gives them a friendly smile.

The harmless aura given off by her modest uniform was kind of ruined by the phone she was lovingly stroking, like she could turn it into a weapon and jam it down someone’s throat.

There’s an interval of silence as they all got their bearings.

The redhead was the one who breaks the silence. “Hello,” she greets, extending a hand. “My name’s Natasha Romanov.” She gestures to her side, where Steve was doing his best impression of a mortified statue. “This is my friend, Steve Rogers.”

Steve lets out a strangled sound.

“Hi,” Sam says, a charming smile on his face as he rounds the bed to shake Natasha’s hand, then Steve’s. Bucky rolls his eyes because, really, can Sam be more _obvious?_ “The name’s Sam Wilson and the dude with the ice pack is James Buchanan Barnes.” He went back to his spot on the farther side of bed before gently nudging Bucky.

"Nice to meet you," Bucky says automatically. He gives the newcomers a weak smile and discreetly wipes his hand on his jeans before going to shake their hands, first to Natasha –who gives him a genuine but appraising smile and a firm handshake—and then Steve, who gives him an equally careful but much longer handshake, most likely because he’s guiltily cataloging Bucky’s injuries while shaking his hand. His grip was steadily getting tighter from his distress.

Bucky finds that he really _really_ does not mind the potential injury this can cause.

Natasha coughs and elbows Steve on the ribs.

“I’m sorry,” Steve blurts out, pulling his hands back and then wringing them together. His eyes finally lock with Bucky’s, all wide and apologetic and, really, how could Bucky not cave? “I’m _really_ sorry for falling on you.”

“Oh no,” Bucky says hastily, waving off his apology. “It’s okay it wasn’t that bad. I barely felt—“” He stops short and backtracks. “Wait! That’s wrong. I didn’t—I didn’t mean that you’re weak or anything I just meant—“

“No, I know what you meant! I’m pretty bony and I think I kneed you in the gut there –“

“—I just meant that you were not backbreakingly heavy and—“

“—I mean, I know I’m really knobbly and pointy and—“

“Oh my god, you losers,” Natasha said loudly over the two of them. Sam tries to stifle his grin.

Bucky and Steve shut up almost at the same time and just stares at each other. There's a blush on both their faces. Somewhere in the background of their intense pining, Sam facepalms and Natasha inwardly despairs.

“I really am sorry,” Steve finally mumbles, looking down on the floor.

“’S okay,” Bucky says lamely, scratching his neck.

The room lapses into silence while Steve and Bucky tries to look at anyone except each other and fails miserably, Natasha hides her amusement behind a picture-perfect expression of polite interest, and Sam sports an unreadable expression at the face of all this failed communication. The whole situation’s slowly becoming exceedingly awkward.

This time, it's Sam who breaks the silence.

“Okay, okay,” Sam says. “Rogers, I have to ask you something very important.” He looks at Steve with a serious expression on his face.

Steve startles and cocks his head, nonplussed. “Okay?”

“Did it hurt?” Sam asks him intently.

“… Yes?” Steve blinks, confused, because he thinks that, yes, falling from a tree generally hurts.

“No, I meant when you fell from heaven,” Sam says easily, a shit-eating grin now slowly forming on his face.

“When I--- _what._ ”

Natasha lets out at undignified snort.

“’Cause, you know, my friend here,” Sam says casually, slinging an arm around Bucky, who squawks indignantly and starts to wriggle out and escape. “He was really —“

“ _Oh my god._ ” Bucky chokes out, mortified. He twists and grabs the pillow behind him and then starts to repeatedly hit Sam on the face. “Sam, shut _up—_!”

Sam lets Bucky go and gracefully dances away from his friend's (increasingly violent) attacks. He’s not going to be deterred. This is a _golden moment._

“— was really worried you hurt yourself—“

“I WILL EVISCERATE YOU.”

“— when you fell from heaven—“

Fuck it. Bucky scraps every sense of dignity he has and lunges at Sam.

“— because YOULOOKLIKEANANGEL— _OOF.”_

The two of them tumble to the floor and disappear behind the bedrails.

Steve takes an uncertain step forward and peers over the railing's edge.

Natasha claps a hand on his back and makes an approving sound. “I like them, Rogers.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Because I wanna write something happy for these people to counteract all the feels.
> 
> Bucky took his date to a family-friendly science convention (i.e. supernerd with a love for star trek and awesome engineering. That's my headcanon.)
> 
> I think all those Mackie and Stan interviews seriously influenced my writing here. Man, I just want these four to be happy O_O.


End file.
